1. From Kabir’s poem “Think While You Are Alive,” in Robert Bly, The Winged Energy of Delight: Selected Translations (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), p. 48.
2. Collection of Leo Malca, New York; reproduced on the cover of Collection Peter Brams (Clinton, N.Y.: The Fred L. Emerson Gallery, Hamilton College, 1986).
3. Untitled (Head), 1983, silkscreen on canvas, 57 1/2 x 75 inches (146.1 x 190.5 cm), edition of 10, published by New City Editions, Venice, California; first reproduced in Kynaston McShine, ed., An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1984), p. 48.
4. Untitled, 1982, graphite, crayon, and gouache on paper mounted on canvas, 96 x 126 inches (243.8 x 320 cm), collection of Fred Hoffman; reproduced in Richard Marshall et al., Jean-Michel Basquiat (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1992), p. 144.
5. Annina Nosei, conversation with the author, November 10, 2003, New York.
6. The dating of this work has raised a certain degree of question. Most sources date it to 1981. The bill of sale, however, dating from 1982 from the Gagosian Gallery, Los Angeles, to its current owners gives a date of 1982. But based on the documentation of the Annina Nosei Gallery, where the work was first exhibited in March 1982, and on that gallerist’s recollections and the recollections of other individuals who saw the work at the Annina Nosei Gallery, as well as on stylistic analysis, the work must be dated to 1981.
7. Most of the literature, including the catalogue of the last American retrospective (Marshall et al., Jean-Michel Basquiat), refers to this work as Untitled (Skull). The Whitney retrospective catalogue most likely picked up the parenthetical subtitle from the loan form information supplied by the lender. Through extensive conversations with the registrar of the lender in January–April 2004, we have determined that the lender’s titling of the painting as Untitled (Skull) is based on the title included in the original invoice that accompanied their purchase of the painting in 1982. The problem with subtitling it Skull becomes evident when one considers just one recent interpretation of the work: Alain Jouffroy states, “There are fewer death heads at the beginning of the 1980s, except for this magnificent painting from 1981 called Skull, in which the skull keeps his eyes wide open like a living head” (Alain Jouffroy, “Le Grand Journal de guerre de Jean-Michel Basquiat/The Great War-Time Journal of Jean-Michel Basquiat,” in Jean-Michel Basquiat: Histoire d’une oeuvre/The Work of a Lifetime [Paris: Fondation Dina Vierny–Musée Maillol, 2003], p. 27).
8. Barnett Newman, “The Sublime Is Now” (1948), in Barnett Newman: Selected Writings and Interviews, ed. John P. O’Neill (New York: Knopf, 1990), p. 173.
9. The work was titled Acque Pericolose on the back of canvas by the artist. The subtitle, not assigned by the artist, that has accompanied the work since its execution is Poison Oasis. While this subtitle does not necessarily reflect an incorrect interpretation of the painting, it is certainly not a literal translation of the title given by the artist; a literal translation would be “Dangerous Waters.”
10. The conclusion that the image is a self-portrait is supported by comparing this figure to that depicted in another work painted at precisely this same time. Arroz con Pollo (page 00) represents the artist and his girlfriend from this period, Suzanne Mallouk. In both Arroz con Pollo and Acque Pericolose, the male figure is seen as x-rayed, simultaneously revealing corpuscular volume and skeletal underpinnings. Arroz con Pollo is one of only two works executed by the artist depicting a pair of male and female figures. Further establishing the identity of the figures in Arroz Con Pollo is the 1982 drawing Self-Portrait with Suzanne (page 00), the only other work in which the artist depicts a pair of male and female figures.
11. An analysis of the numerous depictions of heads of male figures on top of which a circular or oblong form, with lines running away from or transecting its circumference, makes it clear that the artist’s intent was the depiction of a halo or nimbus and not, as has been suggested, a crown of thorns. In fact, there is no irrefutable example of the artist using the symbolic crown of thorns in any work of art. Rather, these radiating lines indicate rays of light, associated with illumination or realization. If there is an example of the nimbus actually having a dual function, including the representation of a crown of thorns, it may possibly be in the contemporaneous painting Arroz con Pollo, where the artist has depicted himself offering the fruits of his labor to his mate, who reciprocates by offering her breast for feeding.
12. A careful reading of Tuxedo (page 00) shows that throughout the tiers of text-images, the artist repeatedly includes references to an ascent toward a final arrival at the crown. Notably, images of ladders are placed on each of the lower three tiers of text-images. As further evidence of Basquiat’s specific association of the crown with spiritual transcendence, it is noteworthy that in the silkscreen print Back of the Neck (1983, 57 1/2 x 103 inches, edition of 24, published by New City Editions, Venice, California; reproduced in Jean-Michel Basquiat [New York: Vrej Baghoomian, 1989], pl. 69), which includes a hand-painted gold crown hovering over the depicted figure’s deconstructed torso, the inclusion of the words back of the neck refers not simply to human anatomy but, as the foremost Leonardo da Vinci scholar Carlo Pedretti has noted, to “the seat of the soul” (in conversation with Annina Nosei, November 17, 2003, concerning Basquiat’s interest in Leonardo).
13. The author would like to acknowledge the comments of Lenore Schorr in helping to establish this conclusion. Herbert and Lenore Schorr acquired this work from the artist soon after it was completed. When asked if she had previously recognized and interpreted the image of the flashlight, Lenore acknowledged that she, too, had not previously considered it. Upon reflection, she quickly saw it as a flashlight and saw it as the artist’s understanding of the importance of the mind. As she put it, “For Jean, everything of value was in the mind” (conversation with the author, December 19, 2003).
14. Quoted in Elaine Pagels, Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas (New York: Random House, 2003), p. 104.
15. The characterization of a body of artworks produced in 1981 as Cityscapes is the present author’s. These works include Untitled, 1981, acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 80 x 112 inches, collection of Annina Nosei; Untitled, 1981, acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 80 x 80 inches, collection of Herbert and Lenore Schorr; and Untitled, 1981, acrylic, oil paintstick, and spray paint on canvas, 86 x 104 inches, collection of Peter Brant.
16. The artist did not title this work. The subtitle Self-Portrait was given by the Annina Nosei Gallery, which sold the work.
17. The author acknowledges L. Emmerling, Basquiat (Cologne: Taschen, 2003), p. 54, and the comments of Annina Nosei in interviews with the author, November 2003, January 2004, and March 2004.
18. Cassius Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali in 1964. The artist’s interest in the subject of the black boxer, and by extension his interest in “Famous Negro Athletes,” is further seen in the paintings St. Joe Louis Surrounded by Snakes, Sugar Ray Robinson, and Jersey Joe Walcott (pages 00).
19. Joseph Campbell, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor, ed. Eugene Kennedy (Novato, Calif.: New World Library, 2001), p. 27.
20. The discussion of this work in Emmerling, Basquiat, pp. 38 and 41, was considered by the present author.
